writing | Bertram's Blog

On Writing: The Name of the Game is “Hurt the Hero.”

June 2, 2008 — Pat Bertram

I like my characters and don’t enjoy hurting them so my novels tend to focus on unraveling the mystery of the situation, because one thing I do understand is that at the heart of all books is a discovery. In a mystery, the discovery is the killer. In a romance, the discovery is love. In a character driven novel, the discovery is the nature of the character himself.

For the first time, though, I understand why the hero needs to be hurt. If the hero doesn’t hurt, why should we care? And if he doesn’t hurt, how would we ever discover his emotional core, what it is that he really cares about? When we discover what the character cares about, we care about him, and want to read to see how he reacts to the hurt and to find out what he is going to do to make it stop.

True character is revealed in the choices a person makes under pressure or when he is hurting or both. The greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation will be and the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature. Pressure is necessary. Choices made when nothing is at risk mean little.

In Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, David Gerrold wrote: “You need to ask yourself these questions in every situation. Asking these questions brings each scene to life: Why is the moment important? Where is the pain? Why does it hurt? And most important — what will make it worse?”

In life, experiences often become meaningful with reflection and time. In retrospect, a horrendous experience takes on an aura of excitement or even happiness because we remember being fully alive. In art, experiences are meaningful now, at the moment they are happening on the screen or in the novel. We can see instantly that the character is hurting, but we can also feel the excitement of the moment, the adrenaline rush. It all happens at once, the reflection and the experience, which explains why movies and books sometimes seem more real than life itself. Without the character hurting, however, the experience becomes muted, less real.

So: hurt the hero. I guess I’ll just have to learn to like it. Or at least learn how to do it well.

Posted in books, culture, fiction, life, writing. Tags: David Gerrold, discovery, emotional core of character, experiences, hero, mystery, Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction and Fant, writing, writing: characters. 2 Comments »

An Itty Bitty Ditty

May 27, 2008 — Pat Bertram

I sat down to rescue my hero from one of the many perils that have beset him, and this is what showed up on the page:

I used to do it when I was young,
Though I don’t do it any more.
I did it in my room all alone
At night after I locked my door.

I could have done it in the day,
But I didn’t want anyone to see
That what I was doing
Was touching something deep inside of me.

The passion is gone with the years,
So now I can let the secret out.
I used to write poetry.
What did you think I was talking about?

I don’t know where that came from, or why, but there it is. Maybe all this writing is stirring up my brain. I just hope what shows up tonight is the next scene in my WIP. My poor hero is getting tired of waiting around for me to rescue him.

Posted in life, writing. Tags: ditty, poetry, writing. 3 Comments »

Writing Sex Scenes

May 23, 2008 — Pat Bertram

In its essence, a sex scene in a novel is no different from any other scene, and the key to writing it is to figure out its objective. If you’re just putting it in there because you think it’s time for some titillation, it will not have the resonance of a motivated scene. (Though in some novels, category romance especially, titillation alone is an acceptable objective.)

There are many other objectives for a sex scene besides titillation: to bring the couple closer together; to show that they want each other even though they can’t tolerate each other; to bring them comfort; to show the maturation of one character (perhaps he couldn’t commit, and now he can); to show the intensity of the relationship; to slow the pace of the book or speed it up; to bring a bit of humor or playfulness to a somber work.

Once you know the objective, you can write a fitting action/reaction sequence. If comfort is the objective, you can show them together at the beginning, close the door during the action, and show them cuddling afterward. If tenderness is the objective, you can show a bit of the action in addition to the before and after. And of course, if their desperation for each other is the objective, you will need to leave the door open during the scene. As with all resonating scenes, when it is over there must be some reaction, some change to the character or the direction of the story. And the objective dictates that reaction. If the scene was about bringing comfort to the characters, we need to know whether they found comfort or failed to find it, and we need to know the characters’ emotional response to the success or failure of that objective. This reaction, in turn will help set up the next scene.

Scenes also help show who the characters are, and where better to do this than when they are at their most vulnerable. The sex scene I wrote that I like best is one where the woman calls out her partner’s name, and he exults to himself, “I’ve still got it!” That defined them and their relationship.

The problem I have with sex scenes is that, in the end, there are only so many different ways of writing them and after a while they begin to seem ho-hum. Finding the objective helps make the scene unique, as does sense description not related to the act. Can they smell the garbage outside the motel window? Is the traffic only a faint hum from her penthouse? How does the office desk feel beneath her back? Each of these bits gives the scene a depth it might not otherwise have.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to have a sex scene in my current work. After devolving (or evolving depending on your point of view) from graphic sex in my first novel to none at all in my fourth, I thought I’d run the gamut. But then I realized I have never done a humorous sex scene, so that’s what I’m going to aim for. Not a bad objective.

Posted in books, fiction, life, writing. Tags: action/reaction, character, scene objectives, scenes, sex scenes, using senses, writing. 6 Comments »

On Writing: The Body Doesn’t Lie. Or Does It?

May 19, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Body language is as important in writing as it is in real life. If you don’t want to explain what your character is feeling or doing, the best way to show it is by their body language.

For example, a person who is lying will often rub an eye, touch gently beneath an eye, put a hand up to the mouth, touch the nose or lips with a finger. Sometimes a liar will tug at an ear, scratch the neck, pull at his collar, jiggle a foot, blink more than normal. People tend not to look in the eyes of the person being lied to. And they hide their palms.

Showing the palms is a way of saying that someone has nothing to hide, and it is a gesture that we all subconsciously react to. But the gesture can be faked, and so can looking someone in the eyes. If you want to show that a character is lying, you can have your liar look another character in the eyes while showing the palms. By mentioning these two signals together, they become important, and can show that the first character is purposely lying. Of course, they can also show what they normally do, that the character is telling the truth.

That’s the problem with body language: it is ambiguous. Scratching the head can mean that a person is thinking or is confused, but it can also mean the person has dandruff. Rubbing an eye or covering the mouth can show that a person is hiding something, but that thing can be as innocent as hiding sleepiness or a yawn. Folding the arms across the chest can mean a person is defensive; it can also mean the person is cold.

Certain signals are subtle in real life, but when used in a scene, they can telegraph the truth. A person generally crosses their legs toward a person they like and away from a person they are not interested in. If you write that a character smiled and crossed her legs away from him, it’s obvious what is going on, even though in life we seldom catch on as quickly.

The same is true of pointing a foot toward the door. It’s a signal that the person wants to leave, and that seldom-noticed signal becomes obvious when written.

Another bit of body language that works well in print is mirroring. A subordinate mirrors the body language of a leader, so your band of characters might have a nominal leader, but their true leader is the one they ape. Interestingly, team members who works well together have the same posture and body language, which shows the rapport of the group.

The best way of learning body language is simply to watch people. Look at their hands and feet when they talk. Have friends purposely lie to you and see how they act when they do. Pay attention to your own gestures, and try to keep them at a minimum. Not only will you be harder to read, the fewer the gestures, the more intelligent and refined you will seem.

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: body language, gestures, how to tell if someone is lying, lies, posture, show don't tell, writing, writing: characters. Leave a Comment »

She Says, He Says; She Does, He Doesn’t

May 16, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Writers often make men and women characters interchangeable, using only physical attributes to tell them apart, forgetting that there are differences between the two species. (I know, men and women aren’t two different species, but you have to admit it feels that way sometimes.)

Brain scans show that women have between fourteen and sixteen areas that evaluate others’ behavior, while men have only four to six. Because of this, women are better at juggling several unrelated topics in a single conversation. They also use five vocal tones to make their points. Since men can only identify three of those tones, they often miss what women are trying to say. So men accuse women of not being direct and women accuse men of not listening.

It’s amazing we manage to communicate as well as we do, considering that men and women have different reasons for conversing. Women ask questions to show interest in the person; men ask questions to gain information. Women find that talking about a problem provides relief; men feel that talking about a problem is dwelling on the negative. Women think that continuing to discuss the problem demonstrates support; men want to make a decision and forget it. Women provide peripheral details because they want to be understood; men just want them to make their point. Women think that talking about a relationship brings people closer; men generally think it’s useless.

Women are better at interpreting body language than men. Because of men’s inability to read body language, a crying baby often confuses them, though women know exactly what the infant wants. Women’s subconscious ability to interpret body language makes them seem more intuitive than men, but men (and women) can consciously learn to interpret body language, which evens things out.

There are differences in the way our eyes work, too. A study of nonnudists at a nudist colony showed that men had difficulty resisting the urge to look, and their gazes were obvious. Women, on the other hand, were not caught gazing, though they had just as hard a time resisting the urge. Does this prove that women have more self-control than men? No. It only means that men and women are hardwired differently. Women have better peripheral vision than men, so they can appear to be looking at a man’s face when in fact they are checking him out.

Men generally have poor close range vision, which keeps them from seeing what’s directly in front of them, but they are better than women at spotting targets over long distances.

I’m not sure how to use this information to make male and female characters non-interchangeable, but knowing some of the differences should help.

Posted in culture, life, writing. Tags: behavior, body language, communication, differences between men and women, writing, writing: characters. 1 Comment »

Your Mother-in-Law, the Sociopath

May 14, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Anyone who writes crime fiction, especially novels about a serial killer, is familiar with the sociopathic personality. But not all sociopaths are killers. Some psychologists estimate that there are thirty thousand psychopaths who are not serial killers for every one who is. So who are these non-killing psychopaths? Your neighbor, perhaps, or your mother-in-law. Maybe even the psychologists who came up with the sociopathic profile. Possibly even you.

Abused children who were not born with a sociopathic personality usually grow up to lead normal lives. Sociopaths who were not abused usually grow up to lead normal lives or lives that mimic normalcy. Sociopaths sometimes become killers because of childhood abuse, and sometimes they become killers simply because they want to. (The killer in the Dutch version of The Vanishing was a classic sociopath who killed to see what it would feel like.)

Even if you don’t write crime fiction, familiarity with the sociopathic personality can help you create dynamic characters and even interesting dialogue. For example, sociopaths frequently use contradictory and illogical statements such as “I never touched her, and anyway, she wanted it.”

A sociopath has difficulty connecting to others, though people often like them. They are charming, glib, witty, and use captivating body language. Because of their impulsiveness, need for excitement, poor behavior controls, and lack of responsibility, they can be fun companions, but because they lack empathy, conscience, and remorse, they can never truly connect with anyone.

Other characteristics of the sociopath are shallow emotions, egocentricity, lying for no reason, no need to conform to societal standards, the skill to detect and exploit the weaknesses of others. They are also well satisfied with themselves, never looking back with regret or forward with concern.

One characteristic that keeps a sociopath from being a good fiction hero is that in fiction heroes need to change during the course of the novel, and sociopaths have solid personalities that are extremely resistant to outside influences. But, being the manipulative creatures that they are, they can make us believe they have changed.

Sounds to me like an interesting character. With or without the killing.

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Posted in books, culture, fiction, life, writing. Tags: character, hero, serial killer, sociopath, The Vanishing, writing. 4 Comments »

The Fun of Writing: the Passion, the Puzzle

May 13, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Blogging about writing is a way of focusing my thoughts. It might seem as if I’m obsessing about minor points or over thinking a scene, but for me that’s part of solving the writing puzzle. So many pieces need to fit together. What is really going on in the scene? What do the characters feel? What do they want? How does the scene fit with the rest of the story? Is it important? What am I trying to accomplish?

Most how-to books on writing suggest getting the first draft down as quickly as possible so that the passion shines through. This is good advice, and I would follow it if stories came easy to me, but they never do. I worried about this (for five minutes or so), wondering if my novels would feel dry and unemotional because I approach them as a puzzle, but the only difference between my way of writing and the so-called right way is that I do my thinking as I write rather than as I rewrite.

Is one way better than another? I don’t know, but if we accomplish what we set out to do, both the logical writers and the passionate ones can end up with interesting stories that will evoke emotions in our readers. In my case, during rewrites I get rid of much of the dryness that comes from the puzzle approach. In your case, perhaps, you lose some of that freewheeling passion when you organize what you have written into a more cohesive story.

We all have to find the best way to write. I am not condoning poor grammar, typographical errors, bad plotting, ignorance of story elements, or any of those other rules that new writers rail against. I’m talking about the fun of writing, the passion, the puzzle.

Samuel Johnson remarked, “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” I guess that makes most of us blockheads, because we write knowing that except for a select group, there is little money to be made from writing. We need other reasons for spending so much time bleeding words.

For me, it’s the puzzle. As frustrating as it gets, I love figuring out plots, character’s motives, new ways of presenting common thoughts. Beats crossword puzzles any day.

Posted in blogging, life, writing. Tags: bleeding words, blockhead, passion for writing, scenes, writing, writing as a puzzle. 1 Comment »

On Writing: Accomplish Your Scene Goal and Get Out

May 11, 2008 — Pat Bertram

I’ve been on a hiatus from my apocalyptic novel, but now that I’m back, I have no more idea of how to write my current scene than I did a month ago when I abandoned Chip, my hero. After Chip hiked through his changed neighborhood, encountering one horror after another, he rescued a pit-bull from a raging river. He met the dog’s owner, talked to him for a few minutes. And that’s where I left him.

I’d been looking forward to that particular scene, thinking it would be easy to write because I would have two characters to work with. I worried about Chip spending too much time alone, but some of those solitary scenes turned out quite well. The changing environment, a defunct plumbing system, and a few of out-of-place and out-of-time creatures gave Chip plenty of conflict. Maybe too much conflict. By comparison, the scene with his mentor (the dog’s owner) is flat. It was supposed to be a high point, but it’s going nowhere.

In the mythic journey scenario, mentors help prepare the hero to face the unknown. They give the hero gifts, which the hero must earn. (Chip earned his gift by rescuing the mentor’s dog.) Mentors act as a conscience for the hero, though sometimes the hero rebels against the nagging conscience. Mentors motivate. And they plant information that will become important during the climactic moment. You’d think, with all that to work with, the scene would just burst out, fully formed. But it’s not happening, which is why I’m sitting here at the computer blogging instead of writing.

Maybe I need to think of something else to give the scene spice. Maybe Chip doesn’t like the mentor, or maybe he doesn’t like the advice the mentor gives him. And maybe I need to rethink the dialogue.

Despite all the writing books that say you need short bits of dialogue, if there’s nothing to be gained by all that back and forthing, it’s better to string one character’s dialogue into a longer speech rather than have the conversation come out sounding like an interview. And if there’s no way to make a scene more interesting, it should be cut to its essentials. Accomplish the scene goal, and get out. In this case, there’s no reason to prolong the meeting with the mentor since Chip will never see him again.

And maybe I should stop over thinking the scene and just write something, anything, to get me back in the habit of writing. If it doesn’t work, I can always fix it during the rewrite.

Posted in blogging, fiction, life, writing. Tags: conflict, dialogue, meeting the mentor, mythic journey, overthinking, rewrite, scene, scene goal, writing, writing: characters. 3 Comments »

Writing Dynamic Descriptions

May 10, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Description by its nature stops the forward movement of story. No matter how beautifully executed the passage, no matter how well a writer engages the senses, description alone goes nowhere. To be dynamic, it has to be part of the physical movement of the plot or part of the development of the character. This is done by not just describing something, but by showing the effect on the character and how the character reacts.

In the 1980s, bookracks in grocery stores were full of gothic romances. Perhaps you remember seeing those covers: a brooding mansion in the background, a woman in a diaphanous gown running away from the house, looking back at it in fear. Despite their triteness, those were dynamic covers: the pictorial description of the house, the effect on the character (fear), and how the character reacted (running away.) Written description can be as vibrant as those covers; it just means taking the description a step further and filtering it through the senses of a character.

Description can be used in other ways to make it dynamic. In previous blogs, I railed against unmotivated actions in bestsellers. Not only do unmotivated actions spoil the story; they show how little respect the authors have for their readers. It’s easy to motivate actions with sense description. Instead of having a character take important files with her for no reason, she could have heard a snip of music that reminded her of a time when she lost something of importance due to carelessness. Or the smell of lilac drifting in the window from outside could have reminded her of her grandmother’s maxim to always take important files with her when she leaves the apartment. (Well, maybe not. But you get the idea.)

Sense description is also useful for making a character remember, for strengthening her resolve, or for segueing from one thought to another. For example, if you need a flashback, one way to move gracefully to the past is by a scent. Perhaps those dang lilacs again. The scent reminds the character of her grandmother and the summer she . . . Instant flashback. Or the scent could remind her that she hasn’t talked to her grandmother for a while, and so resolves to call her. Or the scent reminds her of her grandmother, which reminds her of fresh baked doughnuts, and that reminds her of the shady character she saw in the doughnut shop.

Silly examples, I know. But the point is not silly. Make descriptions come alive by using them to move the story forward.

Posted in blogging, books, writing. Tags: character, description, flashbacks, forward movement, story, using senses in description, writing. Leave a Comment »

Form is not Formula

May 7, 2008 — Pat Bertram

Many writers fight against anything that resembles form in writing, but form can be a good thing. T.S. Eliot said, “When forced to work within a strict framework, the imagination is taxed to its utmost — and will produce its richest ideas. Given total freedom, the work is likely to sprawl.”

To keep a work from sprawling, to give it a feeling of inexorability, everything in a novel needs to be related to everything else in the novel. If it is a love story, the theme needs to be related to love, the inner conflicts need to be related to love, the setting and the imagery should add to the tone of a love story. Murder, mayhem, and mystery are all acceptable elements of a love story, but they need to relate to the love story. Do they bring the lovers together? Or do they tear them apart?

The form of a love story demands the meeting of two would-be lovers who are worthy of being loved, something that throws them together and keeps them together while they are trying to overcome physical or emotional obstacles to their happiness, a bleak moment when it seems as if they will never make it, an interesting twist or a final crisis to delay the ending a bit more, and then a fitting and satisfying ending.

In category romance, more than any other genre, there are extensive forms to follow depending on the publisher, and those publishers explain exactly what they want. For example, Harlequin has a new imprint called Next which is designed for women over forty who want to know what comes next in their lives. The readers of these stories have already experienced first love, perhaps been married, maybe have grown children, so they have different goals and dreams than women in their twenties and thirties. And writers of these stories have new forms to follow.

But form is not formula. Form helps focus a story, and within any form are an infinite number of variables. The freshness and originality of the story depends upon the writer and the writer’s choices.

Writing is all about the choices a writer makes, and the more specific those choices are, the more the work will burst out in vivid color. At the very least, form helps determine the initial choices necessary when beginning to write a novel. Form is like the viewfinder on a camera. Only certain objects are visible through the viewfinder, yet while looking at what those objects, we get an impression of the entire environment. That, in the end, is what writing is: showing an entire world by the specific characters we create, the objects we choose to describe, the story we choose to tell no matter what its form.